Operational review
Operational highlights 2023
Safety, Operations and Sustainability Review
Safety
In 2023, ACWA Power undertook significant strides in Health, Safety, Security, and Environment (HSSE), guided by our overarching commitment to embedding accountability at the core of our operational ethos. Our concerted efforts, steered by the Safety Executive Committee (SEC) and the global Safety Task Force (STF), have established new benchmarks in safety and well‑being, both within the organisation and across our project sites. Our aim remains zero harm across all our operations.
The Group accumulated 72 million man hours during 2023 and a Lost‑time injury rate (LTIR) of 0.014 (rounded up to 0.01 in reporting), which was 22% lower versus 0.018 (rounded up to 0.02 in reporting) in 2022, due to lower number of lost time injuries. We are pleased to report NO fatalities in 2023.
Operational Performance
During 2023, we added ~5 GW of power and 979,000 m3/day of desalinated water as incremental operational capacity, thus bringing the total operational capacity in our portfolio to ~30 GW of power and 5.5 million m3/day of water representing fully operational assets and under‑construction assets that have achieved partial commercial operations.
2023 has seen a marked improvement in the operational performance of our power portfolio, especially considering the challenges faced in 2022 on account of forced outages (FO) on some of our plants. The improved performance was mainly on account of the successful implementation of the first full year of the Reliability of Supply (RoS) programme that was launched in late 2022. This resulted in a significant reduction in the rate of plant outages (forced and planned) in our power portfolio bringing us much closer to more acceptable levels per industry standards.
We witnessed a significant improvement in our consolidated Power availability during 2023 by 470 basis points reaching 91.9% vs. 87.2% in 2022. The renewable segment within Power recorded 97.4% availability, with an improvement of more than 500 basis points compared to 2022 which was at 92.2%.
Our water portfolio continued to perform at commendable levels with the consolidated water availability registering 96.4% (YE2022: 96.6%).
2023 Reliability of Supply programme:
As a fundamental business priority, ACWA Power has implemented a comprehensive RoS enhancement programme in 2023 to mitigate fleet chronic issues caused by design weaknesses, manufacturing flaws, installation QC defects and commissioning issues. The programme aims to enhance the asset life cycle management process, increase asset availability and improve operational reliability. The implementation scope has covered different technologies, including PV, CSP, RO, Thermal, and CCGT plants, with +300 mitigation actions that have been discussed, validated, agreed, planned and executed in proper alignment with all stakeholders within +40 different plants.
Also, during 2023, we launched an O&M critical systems mitigation plan that proactively mitigates the critical failure modes that may lead to significant loss of major equipment enabling the O&M team to address the reliability risks in a structured approach and allocate the mitigation resources more effectively, reducing operational events within the O&M systems considered in the plan.
In 2024, we will continue with the second phase of the RoS enhancement programme in parallel with the O&M critical systems mitigation plan, focusing more on reliability culture, standardisation and governance to ensure the highest performance levels are sustained with the new growth plan.
Sustainability
Sustainability is intrinsic to our Company given that ACWA Power is engaged in seawater desalination and the global transition towards clean energy and providing innovative energy solutions. While doing this, we focus on creating shared value by prioritising the growth and well‑being of our employees as well as making a positive impact in the communities where we operate.
Aligned with the Saudi Vision 2030, our global sustainability strategy aspires to accomplish ambitious goals including to be one of the top three international renewable energy players by 2030. With the 11 new renewable projects – in aggregate of ~7.1 GW capacity – that we added to our portfolio during 2023, the renewable capacity in our power portfolio is currently at 44.5% (YE2022: 39%), and we are well on track to achieve a 50/50 portfolio mix between renewables and flexible generation by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050.
In 2023, we revisited our basis for reporting on greenhouse gas emissions and unified the methodology to enhance our GHG emissions reporting and disclosure. The new methodology improves the accuracy of operational data flow and provides more accurate representation of the GHG emissions. The data scope includes all operational assets that have achieved project Commercial Operations Date (COD). We have accordingly restated the data since 2020 (‘Base Year’), our baseline year set for our 2050 net zero targets and our interim 2030 targets.
The total (Scope 1 and 2) CO₂e absolute emissions across all assets during 2023 measured as total portfolio of 64.82 million tonnes CO₂e which reduced by 7% compared to the absolute emissions in the Base Year (based on restated data). ACWA Power’s share (based on equity ownership in each asset) of the absolute emissions was 27.79 million tonnes CO₂e. The CO₂e intensity of gross electricity generation during the same period measured as total portfolio of 0.44 tonnes CO₂e/MW, a 2% reduction compared to the intensity Base Year (based on restated data), and the intensity based on ACWA Power’s equity share was 0.50 tonnes CO₂e/MWh. Compared to 2022, while the absolute emissions have increased, mainly due to new non-renewable assets coming into full operations during 2023 (Al Dur IWPP and Rabigh 2 IPP), the intensity has reduced due to an increase in generation from renewable sources.
As generation increases from renewable resources, our portfolio’s specific emissions intensity (CO₂ g/kWh) reduces. Our net zero strategy calls for more than 75% of power capacity additions to be from renewable sources. Moreover, as part of Saudi Arabia and our other portfolio country’s’ decarbonisation strategy, we have or are in discussions with the relevant Offtakers to convert high‑carbon to low‑carbon emitting plants such as fuel‑efficient natural gas plants with carbon capture capabilities or reverse osmosis water desalination plants.
Concurrently, we will continue to leverage our world‑leading position in water desalination to actively engage in the development of technologically advanced and energy‑efficient sustainable water desalination projects. Through highly efficient pumps, we have enabled the RO process to operate at a specific power consumption (SPC) of 2.78 kWh/m3m, and 87% reduction in SPC since 2010. In addition, captive PV solutions within our water desalination plants have resulted in lower GHG emissions. It is also worth noting that almost 100% of our water withdrawal source and water discharge destination in our portfolio is seawater.
In 2023 we conducted a thorough assessment, by utilising ESG rating agencies and sustainability reporting standards to further improve our sustainability reporting. More detailed disclosure on ESG and sustainability along with the revised methodology and updated data points is included in the Sustainability review.